


Meeting the Avatar

by jacquelee



Series: The Ice Queen in the Earth Kingdom [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Frozen (2013)
Genre: Community: 1_million_words, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-26 17:06:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7582591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacquelee/pseuds/jacquelee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toph, Anna and Elsa meet the Avatar for the first time and after a few bumps in the road, decide to take team Aang up on their offer to go with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meeting the Avatar

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [1_million_words](http://1-million-words.livejournal.com), for the Star Trek Voyager quote "I don't like threats, I don't like bullies and I don't like you" (Captain Janeway).
> 
> First installment of my series The Ice Queen in the Earth Kingdom, in which Anna and Elsa find Toph as children and live with her.

"What about them?" 

Toph was all ready to leave after Xin Fu let her out of her cage because the girls paid up, but obviously Anna was the one to point out the flaw in that plan, namely that that boy, Aang, was clearly not going to be let go, since Xin Fu had learned that he was the Avatar and therefore would rather sell him to the Fire Nation for a far greater price.

The girl, Katara, seemed to pick up on Anna's hesitation. Toph could feel her move towards them, just as clearly as she could feel the threat of all the contestants in the rumble in front of her, moving away with a weight on their shoulders, probably the cage with the Avatar. 

"Please, we need you. We can't beat them all. We need an earthbender and you are the best." 

"Now I wouldn't say the-"

"Sokka!"

"Okay, okay."

Now Xin Fu scoffed. 

"Look, little boys, you got what you wanted, leave this to us. You wouldn't like fighting all of us together, would you?" 

Toph had still been undecided before, but now she turned around and looked in the direction where she could sense Xin Fu and scowled. She only needed him laughing condescendingly to make a decision. Then she went back into the middle of the arena and assumed her fighting stance.

"I don't like threats, I don't like bullies, and I don't like you!" She concentrated on Xin Fu and didn't pay much attention if Anna and Elsa followed her, knowing that they would help her when needed. "I beat you all before, I will beat you again. Even all at once." 

Now the contestants stopped. Toph sensed a few of them coming back into her direction.

"The Boulder takes issue with that statement." 

Toph laughed. Well, he could take issue as much as he wanted, didn't make it less the truth. 

The ensuing fight was swift. Toph knocked out her opponents one by one and Elsa and Anna ran over to Katara and Sokka who tried to free Aang from the metal cage. 

Elsa held up her hand when Sokka was about to hit the lock with a rock. 

"Here, let me." She froze the lock with one swift move. "Now it should work." 

Sokka looked at her with a mix of admiration and suspicion and then crushed the lock with a single strike. Katara just seemed to be surprised by Elsa's bending abilities.

Aang blew out of the cage and immediately assumed a fighting stance in midair, but dropped it when he saw the devastation all around them. When even Xin Fu himself was defeated, Toph joined the little group. 

"I suggest we get out of here. You were saying we could join you? That offer is still standing, is it?" 

This time, even Sokka didn't say anything, having been effectively silenced by Toph's display of her earthbending skills.

"Yes it is. Let's go!" 

Aang's tone suggested that he was grinning and Toph couldn't help but smile a little herself. This had been fun and helping the Avatar learn earthbending while traveling the world was exactly what they needed right now. 

Not that she had planned on changing anything about her life, but now that this opportunity had presented herself, she was ready to take it. 

When they left the arena, after having taken back their money from Xin Fu, who was still out of it, Toph thought back on the last few hours. It had not even been an entire day and still, the life she and Elsa and Anna had carved out for themselves so diligently over the last few years had been thoroughly changed. She could only hope for the better. 

It all had started with that kid challenging her in the ring. At that point, she didn't know he was the Avatar, otherwise she would have been more careful in fighting him. As it was, he knocked her out of the ring and lost her the title she had been fighting for for weeks. 

She knew Anna and Elsa would follow the kid and his friends, so she went back to their cave.

"It's the Avatar!" 

Toph had been lying on one of the badgermoles, dozing off a little, when Anna's excited screams woke her up. 

"What?"

"That kid in the arena. It's the Avatar! That's how he beat you! He used airbending." 

"How do you know that?" 

Now Elsa chimed in. 

"Well, you know Anna. She made friends with them immediately and after that it really wasn't hard to find out." 

"They want you as earthbending teacher for the Avatar. They were asking in the school for a girl and a flying badger. Someone told them that that was the insignia of the Beifong's so now they're heading to the estate." 

Suddenly alarmed, Toph jumped off of the badgermole. 

"What? They're going to my parents? We need to stop them!" 

"Too late. I'm sure they're already there. But we can talk to them when they leave, that's why we came here to get you." 

Toph frowned. This was not the news she would have liked to hear. Ever since she had left her parents' house for good a few years ago, she lived in fear that they would someday find her and take her back. But since nobody even knew the Beifong's had a daughter, so far nobody had made the connection between the Blind Bandit and Toph Beifong. 

Especially since she was posing as a boy, the same as Anna and Elsa. Among themselves, they still referred to each other by their real names, but to everyone else, they were Tom, Anton and Elmar. They all had escaped a past they did not want to return to and this seemed to be the best disguise. But what if she had been found out? 

Elsa's voice brought Toph back to the present.

"Like Anna said, they want you to travel with them. The Avatar and his friends. To teach the Avatar earthbending and help him defeat the Firelord." 

"Me? How does he even know about me?" 

"From what we could gather, he had a vision of a girl who looked like you with a flying badger on her shoulder." 

"Oh, great, that'll do it. Now he'll tell my parents all about the Blind Bandit. They're going to send out people to get me back!" 

She couldn't see it, but the moment of hesitation made Toph suspect that Anna and Elsa shared a look. Then Elsa cleared her throat.

"Well, we were thinking that maybe we should accept. You know. Travel with them." 

"It could be fun!" 

"Fun? Traveling with the Avatar and teaching that insolent boy earthbending? Fighting the Fire Nation?" Actually, when she said that, Toph realized that that indeed sounded like fun. She shrugged. "Why not? We can't stay here when my parents know about me. As long as you're okay with this. I mean it's a big change." 

"YAY!" 

Anna's reaction was answer enough. She jumped up and down so enthusiastically that the badgermoles let out some huffs. Elsa was more concerned with practical things.

"We will probably not be able to take all of the things we have here, but I guess that won't be a problem. Nobody knows this cave even exists, so they should be safe here." She shrugged. "I agree that going is the best course of action right now. Let's pack what we need and go talk to them when they leave your parents' place, okay?"

"Okay." 

After a sad goodbye from the badgermoles and a promise to return to visit, the girls left the cave that for the last few years had been their home. Not wanting to be overly burdened when talking to the Avatar and his friends, especially since that conversation would take place near her parents' house, Toph suggested to stow their things under a nearby tree and come back for them later. 

Then they hid in the bushes outside the Beifong estate. Toph send out waves to feel inside the house and indeed, she could feel the step of that kid, just about to leave the garden. They were right on time. 

Not wanting the confrontation to take place directly at the estate, they followed the kids a few minutes before Toph went ahead of them a little and then send all three of them flying with an earthbending move. 

She went to stand over the Avatar, while Anna and Elsa positioned themselves behind his friends. 

"I heard you want me to teach you some earthbending, twinkle toes." 

"You heard correctly."

It was said with only a hint of hesitation, after Aang had gotten himself back to his feet. Toph had to give it to the Avatar, he caught on quickly. 

From behind her, there came a wail. 

"Don't respond to twinkle toes, Aang. It's not manly." 

"Oh, really? What is manly then, oh manly man? How about you teach us the manly ways?" 

Now Toph grinned. Anna seemed to have found a new victim for her sarcasm. Good for her. 

"Wait, but you're a boy, right? I mean, she's a girl but…" 

After a little moment of silence, the manly boy's companion, clearly his sister, spoke up.

"I hate to break it to you, Sokka but I think they're all girls." That seemed to shut him up and his sister used that moment to get back to the topic at hand. "Look, you seem to know about what we want already. So what do you want?" 

While Toph for some reason instinctively disliked her, she had to admire the way she cut to the chase. 

"We want to come with you. All three of us." 

"Of course." 

This time, Aang was the one who answered. But the annoying manly boy, who seemed to have recovered from the shock of realizing that they were girls, still had to say something about that, obviously. 

"Wait, what? All three of them? No, no, no, no, no. Aang, we're going to be outnumbered! That's not right!" 

Anna scoffed.

"What, are you afraid of a few little girls? You strong manly man?" 

"Katara! Say something." 

Katara cocked her head to the side.

"Well, are you?" 

Realizing that he had asked the wrong person and that he did not want to open that specific can of worms by answering, Sokka turned to where help was more likely to come from.

"Aang, back me up here!"

"Sorry mate. You're on your own." 

Before Sokka could launch into a tirade as to how emasculating it was to have three girls in the team Toph suddenly went down on her knees and felt the ground. There was definitely something wrong. 

"An ambush!" 

Everyone except Sokka, who just looked at her open mouthed, went into fighting stances, but it was already too late. They were all knocked back into different directions by the ground suddenly coming up under them. 

Toph, who had landed next to Aang a little bit away from the others, leapt to her feet but before she could even try using earthbending, a metal cage closed over her and she was thrown into the air by another earthbending move and then carried away by someone. 

She faintly heard Xin Fu's voice, telling the other kids that they owed him money and to meet him in the arena to pay up. Great! She tried earthbending, but the metal effectively stopped her from getting any connection to the ground. She hated that. Without her senses she didn't know what was going on at all. It made her feel helpless and small. 

She could only hope that Elsa and Anna would get the money they had earned before in the arena and pay Xin Fu. As much as she did not like that idea, it seemed the only way to get out of here.


End file.
